The new state: Romanticism and Realism
When Belgium became independent in 1830 the new state needed a history in pictures. History painters such as Gustaf Wappers and Louis Gallait depicted the past, while realists and individualists such as Antoine Wiertz, Alfred Stevens and Félicien Rops went their own ways.
The Belgian Revolution of 1830 created a kingdom with a German prince, Leopold I, as king. The young state wanted to show that it had a long and glorious history, and artists were commissioned to paint Flemish urban uprisings, Burgundian dukes and Spanish oppression. Gustaf Wappers’s painting of the September Days of 1830 became the manifesto of Belgian Romanticism.
History painters such as Louis Gallait of Tournai and Nicaise de Keyser had great success all over Europe, and in Antwerp Hendrik Leys painted medieval scenes in a style that imitated the old masters. Antoine Wiertz went further and wanted to rival Rubens and Michelangelo in gigantic paintings, which the state allowed him to show in a studio of his own in Brussels.
Around 1850 Realism arrived, under the impression of Gustave Courbet, who exhibited in Belgium and had many admirers there. Charles De Groux painted the poor and workers, and Alfred Stevens became famous in Paris for his elegant women in modern interiors. Félicien Rops began as a satirical draughtsman. In 1868 the Société libre des Beaux-Arts was founded to defend a freer, more naturalistic art.